


moving day

by sevedra



Series: Portraits of Recovery [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gen, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-The Avengers: Infinity War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 01:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13471140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevedra/pseuds/sevedra
Summary: When, exactly, had he acquired so much stuff?





	moving day

When, exactly, had he acquired so much stuff?

He'd arrived at the compound with the clothes on his back and not enough others to last a week without washing. Now there were four boxes of clothes he'd packed so far. New-bought, but somehow worn-thin, jeans and pleated khaki slacks and a rainbow of sweatpants. Long sleeved and short sleeved t-shirts, plain and with funny pictures of various Avengers or sleeping baby animals, one that managed to combine them by presenting the Avengers as sleeping baby animals. Sam and Clint as tiny fluffy baby birds was never going to get old. Button front flannels in bold plaids and smooth cottony dress shirts that came in beautiful pastels and several shades of blue instead of the age-old plain white he knew before. Fleece pullovers both with and without hoods, and with and without pockets. Butter soft pajama pants and zip-front lightweight jackets, some of those he had removed the left sleeve as he became more acclimated to having the arm show instead of hiding it. A-cut undershirts, ribbed and not, that Stark somehow got away with wearing even without an overshirt. He suspected he had some clothes in Steve's room that he'd need to put in a fifth box.

And why on earth had he bought so many books? They were heavy when boxed up! Stark had tried to talk him into an e-reader. A little flat computer thing with books already on it that he could add to anytime. It looked stupid. He liked holding a book in his hands. He liked smelling the paper and the ink and even the weird musty smell that the older, used ones he'd gotten had. A book had a solid place to sit on the shelf. A book in the hand was real to him in a way that words on a screen never would be. He liked actual books. He did not like packing and moving actual books. Maybe he'd revisit that e-reader option if he wanted to keep reading.

His little complex hand puzzles had all fit nicely into one box. A bit of bubblewrap went a long way towards making sure they were both cushioned and packed compactly so they wouldn't shift in transit. That was a relief considering he couldn't figure out how in the world to pack a bunch of tiny paper birds and boats and elephants. They were going to get crushed and flattened and bent if he didn't work out a solution.

There'd been an entire box of bathroom stuff, too. He remembered, before and during the war, having a bar of soap that served for washing both his hair and his skin, and did duty as shaving foam. He'd owned one comb, one jar of pomade, and one bar of soap, along with one washcloth and one towel. His bathroom box currently held two different shampoos, one combined with a conditioner, one with a matching bottle of separate conditioner. True, his hair felt a lot better than it had in the past, but wasn't this a bit much? He had a comb _and_ a brush. He had a jar of pomade, a spritzy bottle of leave-in conditioner, some smoothing stuff for frizzy days, and twenty-five(!!) stretchy hairbands for making ponytails and buns. Twenty-five! Sure, they were several different colors, and several different thicknesses and some were elastic while others were terry and still others were elastic covered in cloth, but still...twenty-five! He also had two different bars of soap, one for his body and one for his face. And a bottle of liquidy gel soap that had lived on the counter just for using on his hands. He owned a _set_ of bathroom linens. Two washcloths and four towels that all matched and were made of the softest most absorbent stuff he'd ever rubbed against his bare wet skin.

He'd had to pack those with the sheets and blankets and quilts because they wouldn't fit in the bathroom box. And he had so many bed covers! A set of plain white cotton sheets with a thread count so high it felt like sleeping in the clouds, a flannel set that was soft and warm and comforting in the cold weather, and a silky, slippery, satiny set in bright red that he was sure Stark thought was funny. He had two handmade quilts from the ancient grandmother at the local market. Plus an extra warm microfleece in Captain America colors. His bed had four regular pillows and six decorative throw pillows. They didn't match each other, but they had an Avengers theme going on. One was a miniature Hulk, one was purple with arrow designs, Stark had again provided an Iron Man element with a triangular shaped pillow in red and gold stripes with a bright blue center. Steve looked sheepish every time he saw the shield pillow and Natasha took great pride in the plain black square with a red hourglass in the middle. The sixth was one he was sure Stark had also thought up, it was a silvery gray with a red star in the corner. Only Stark poked at The Winter Soldier and tried to make that part of Bucky feel as normal as the rest of him. And who else would commission specialty pillows?

Finally, the room was as spartan as it had been the day he arrived. Bucky felt a tinge of nostalgia for his early days at the compound. He'd not been himself quite yet, but this room had been a blank slate for him to paint his burgeoning personality onto. And he'd done that. He'd taken this space and claimed it for his own. He was sad to leave it behind. He had lived here, at the compound and in this room, for more than a year. He'd learned who he was and who he wanted to be. He'd stumbled until he could walk, upright and with his head held high. He had relearned being brothers with Steve and rekindled the deep connection they had. He'd forged a truce with Stark and they'd developed a bond over sessions of arm maintenance and lessons in new technology that HYDRA had not gotten to or bothered with. He'd worked as an Avenger in the battle against Thanos. He'd earned the title of hero, after having earned the title of world's most lethal assassin. The change in moniker was welcome. He was not the same man who had come here from Wakanda, fresh out of cryo and still smarting over the sudden fight and flight in Europe, where he'd briefly been forced back into The Winter Soldier.

The compound, and this room specifically, had become his home. His refuge. He safe haven. The room had served him well while he'd lived here. But he was moving on now. To a new home, a place of his own choosing. Moving forward to a new life.


End file.
